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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Zoology & animal sciences > Invertebrates > Insects (entomology)
Howard Evans was a brilliant ethologist and systematist for whom
the joy of science included lying on his belly in some remote
location, digging out and diagramming a wasp's nest. During his
career, Evans described over 900 species and authored more than a
dozen books, both technical and popular, on a wide range of
entomological and natural history subjects. Upon his death in 2002,
he left behind an unfinished manuscript, intended as an update
(though not a revision) of his classic 1966 work, "The Comparative
Ethology and Evolution of the Sand Wasps," Kevin O'Neill, Evans's
former student and coauthor, has completed and enlarged Evans's
manuscript, to provide coverage of all sand-wasp tribes in Evan's
earlier book. The result is a tribe-by-tribe, species by species
review of studies of the Bembicinae that have appeared over the
last four decades. "The Sand Wasps: Natural History and Behavior"
already has been hailed by specialists as a new bible for those
working on solitary wasps and an essential reference for scientists
more broadly interested in insect behavioral evolution.
Tropical Forest Insect Pests, first published in 2007, promotes a
better theoretical understanding of pest population dynamics, and
causes of forest insect outbreaks in the tropics. Covering pests of
both natural forests and plantations, it examines the diversity of
tropical forest insects; their ecological functions; the concept of
pests; and the incidence of pests in natural forests, plantations,
and stored timber. General issues on which foresters and forest
entomologists hold strong traditional views, such as the severity
of pest incidence in plantations vs. natural forests, in
plantations of exotics vs. indigenous tree species, and in
monocultures vs. mixed plantations are discussed. The final section
looks in detail at specific insect pests of the common plantation
tree species across the tropics, with recommendations for their
control. This is a comprehensive resource suitable for graduate
students and researchers in forestry and tropical forest
entomology, and for forest plantation managers in the tropics.
The modified mouthparts group is perhaps the largest of the four
major Hawaiian Drosophila clades, yet has received relatively
little taxonomic attention during the past 40 years. This study
reviews unplaced species and the ceratostoma, freycinetiae,
semifuscata, and setiger subgroups, with descriptions of 22 new
species. We hope this work encourages greater study of the biology
of this important group.
THE FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGIST turns a dispassionate, analytic eye on
scenes from which most people would recoil -- human corpses in
various stages of decay, usually the remains of people who have met
a premature end through accident or mayhem. To M. Lee Goff and his
fellow forensic entomologists, each body recovered at a crime scene
is an ecosystem, a unique microenvironment colonized in succession
by a diverse array of flies, beetles, mites, spiders, and other
arthropods: some using the body to provision their young, some
feeding directly on the tissues and by-products of decay, and still
others preying on the scavengers. Using actual cases on which he
has consulted, Goff shows how knowledge of these insects and their
habits allows forensic entomologists to furnish investigators with
crucial evidence about crimes. Even when a body has been reduced to
a skeleton, insect evidence can often provide the only available
estimate of the post-mortem interval, or time elapsed since death,
as well as clues to whether the body has been moved from the
original crime scene, and whether drugs have contributed to the
death. An experienced forensic investigator who regularly advises
law enforcement agencies in the United States and abroad, Goff is
uniquely qualified to tell the fascinating if unsettling story of
the development and practice of forensic entomology.
Over half a century of brilliant scientific detective work, the
Nobel Prize-winning biologist Karl von Frisch learned how the
world, looks, smells, and tastes to a bee. More significantly, he
discovered their dance language and their ability to use the sun as
a compass. Intended to serve as an accessible introduction to one
of the most fascinating areas of biology, Bees (first published in
1950 and revised in 1971), reported the startling results of his
ingenious and revolutionary experiments with honeybees.
In his revisions, von Frisch updated his discussion about the
phylogenetic origin of the language of bees and also demonstrated
that their color sense is greater than had been thought previously.
He also took into consideration the electrophysiological
experiments and electromicroscopic observations that have supplied
more information on how the bee analyzes polarized light to orient
itself and how the olfactory organs on the bee's antennae
function.
Now back in print after more than two decades, this classic and
still-accurate account of the behavior patterns and sensory
capacities of the honeybee remains a book "written with a
simplicity, directness, and charm which all who know him will
recognize as characteristic of its author. Any intelligent reader,
without scientific training, can enjoy it." Yale Review"
Mostly tiny, infinitely delicate, and short-lived, insects and
their relatives--arthropods--nonetheless outnumber all their fellow
creatures on earth. How lowly arthropods achieved this unlikely
preeminence is a story deftly and colorfully told in this follow-up
to the award-winning "For Love of Insects," Part handbook, part
field guide, part photo album, "Secret Weapons" chronicles the
diverse and often astonishing defensive strategies that have
allowed insects, spiders, scorpions, and other many-legged
creatures not just to survive, but to thrive.
In sixty-nine chapters, each brilliantly illustrated with
photographs culled from Thomas Eisner's legendary collection, we
meet a largely North American cast of arthropods--as well as a few
of their kin from Australia, Europe, and Asia--and observe at
firsthand the nature and extent of the defenses that lie at the
root of their evolutionary success. Here are the cockroaches and
termites, the carpenter ants and honeybees, and all the miniature
creatures in between, deploying their sprays and venom, froth and
feces, camouflage and sticky coatings. And along with a marvelous
bug's-eye view of how these secret weapons actually work, here is a
close-up look at the science behind them, from taxonomy to chemical
formulas, as well as an appendix with instructions for studying
chemical defenses at home. Whether dipped into here and there or
read cover to cover, "Secret Weapons" will prove invaluable to
hands-on researchers and amateur naturalists alike, and will
captivate any reader for whom nature is a source of wonder.
In this curriculum, students will observe the wonders of the
natural world unfolding in front of them by raising painted lady
butterflies from larva through adulthood. Youth will experience the
mystery of the butterfly life cycle while engaging in hands-on
activities that explore concepts of insect structures and
functions, compare insect behaviors and life cycles, and
demonstrate the role everyone can play in environmental
stewardship.
Bogland habitat, which is often threatened by peat extraction, has
enormous natural history value. As well as the better-known plants,
dragonflies and birds, it supports a unique community of
microscopic animals and plants inhabiting the leaves and crevices
of Sphagnum, the moss that dominates bog vegetation. Under the
microscope, a single drop of water squeezed from bog moss reveals a
wonderful diversity of complex and distinctive organisms. The
peculiar characteristics of this bog moss habitat are described,
and the book introduces the natural history and ecological
interrelationships of its microscopic organisms, focusing in
particular on the more obvious and elegant groups: the desmids,
diatoms, shelled amoebae and rotifers or wheel animalcules.
Identification is assisted by numerous detailed line illustrations
and by the coloured plates. User-friendly keys will help the reader
to allocate specimens to a group, and to name the more conspicuous
genera of flagellates, desmids, diatoms, shelled amoebae and
rotifers, as well as some species of Sphagnum itself. This is
digital reprint of 0855462914 (1993).
Set in the author's adopted home of California in the 1920s,
this is Gene Stratton-Porter's last novel, a story filled with
wisdom, a love of nature, and her own abiding optimism. In it a
Master Bee Keeper, his bees, and the natural beauty of California
restore a wounded World War I veteran to health.
Bogland habitat, which is often threatened by peat extraction, has
enormous natural history value. As well as the better-known plants,
dragonflies and birds, it supports a unique community of
microscopic animals and plants inhabiting the leaves and crevices
of Sphagnum, the moss that dominates bog vegetation. Under the
microscope, a single drop of water squeezed from bog moss reveals a
wonderful diversity of complex and distinctive organisms. The
peculiar characteristics of this bog moss habitat are described,
and the book introduces the natural history and ecological
interrelationships of its microscopic organisms, focusing in
particular on the more obvious and elegant groups: the desmids,
diatoms, shelled amoebae and rotifers or wheel animalcules.
Identification is assisted by numerous detailed line illustrations
and by the coloured plates. User-friendly keys will help the reader
to allocate specimens to a group, and to name the more conspicuous
genera of flagellates, desmids, diatoms, shelled amoebae and
rotifers, as well as some species of Sphagnum itself. This is
digital reprint of 0855462914 (1993).
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